Muffin "week to week"

[PuckinUgly57]

Never been a huge fan of the guy but he eats up a lot of minutes. Will say he has played well overall this season, probably his best NHL season as a player (not offensively only) although the egregious Muffin Turnover is alive and well from time to time still that ends up burning LA.

Curious to see who Stevens puts in of Gravel or LaDue and if he changes the defense pairings up. Gravel makes sense because he is a LH shot like Muzzin, but LaDue makes sense because he is more offensively inclined (read: PP) but not as strong down low, not that I can see anyway.

Putting LaDue in could put a LH/RH shot on every pairing but then that also breaks up the Phaneuf/Martinez pair which I think has really been good overall. Phaneuf has settled in nicely and I think has really stabilized the back end. Also highlights the importance of his acquisition, I don't think the Kings are this close to locking up a PO spot without him.

Definitely a good trade by Blake even though it was puzzling to me at first (not that he got a T4 defender but who it was - T4 has been needed ever since Voynov). He has a little bit of the Matt Greene in him in the physicality and confrontational department which slowly evaporated over the years with guys likw Greene, Mitchell and Regehr moving on (Scuderi was tough down low but not an in your face guy like these 3) and his shot mentality is great to see. Dude has a cannon and doesn't need a big back swing to get it off.

Gravel is definitely the bigger guy and a jack of all trades which is somewhat appealing but he doesn't seem to be as gifted offensively.

My take would be for AZ would be:
24/8
3/38
27/5

Anaheim is a much bigger, physical team so that set up would be:

24/8
3/27
53/5

Although that third pair makes me a little nervous for some reason. All in all a tough situation for Stevens having to rely on 2 guys now with a combined 99 NHL games experience including 0 PO games or meaningful game experience.

This is it for the Kings these next 5 games so they will be thrown to the wolves.

 

[Kings4OT]

I want to see Ladue out there at least for AZ

 

[davnlaguna]

Muzzin plays about 21 minutes
If LaDue can play 16 everyone else would need to play 1 more.
LaDue have averaged 14-15 when he plays.

 

[PuckinUgly57]

I think I would go a little top heavy with the T3 if possible based on Muzzin's 21:39 ATOI:

Doughty 26:43
Martinez 21:39
Forbort 20:55
Phaneuf 19:01

Folin 15:33
Gravel 14:05
LaDue 14:02

Not the most ideal situation but at this stage of the season and what is at stake, I don't feel comfortable putting inexperienced defenders out there a lot.

The Hawks and their last Cup win solely relying on their T4 because their 5th-7th defenders were not reliable/inexperienced is an anomaly but you need all three pairs rolling to be successful come April, otherwise you are toast asking your T4 to log heavy minutes in all situations.The Kings, should they get in, are facing a similar situation if Muffin is out for any extended period of time in the POs.

Of course situation, opponent, all that needs to be accounted for (i.e., I'm not putting LaDue out there in a lock down situation with under a minute left against Anaheim Friday but may have given him more minutes on a PP earlier in the game. I would have considered that scenario earlier in the season when it didn't have major PO implications) and I'm sure Stevens will adjust accordingly.

I'd feel much better if Doughty could take an extra 1:30 and the rest 1:00, meaning LaDue or Gravel get about an extra :45 out there. I would actually increase Phaneuf's ice time a bit between 1:00/1:30 more because he is a veteran defender and the more he has been out there, the better the Kings have played overall. I think he could handle the extra time.

Doughty is good but also high risk/high reward, Phaneuf is a steady defensive defender mostly and based on the current standings and situation that's where I would focus generally speaking.

 

[PuckinUgly57]

Gravel in tonight against AZ, Phaneuf bumped up to the first PP unit with Doughty, Gravel moved to the second PP unit with Martinez.

Huge game tonight for LA, every game is important the next week or so. Tonight we're pulling for Nashville and the Wild and the Kings need 2 points any way they can get them.

 

[Fox4Kings]

Hopefully tonight is not one of those games where they come out lightly since they play the Ducks tomorrow. Raanta played last night so we should see Keumper, wondering if Soupy will be in net?

 

[PuckinUgly57]

Hopefully tonight is not one of those games where they come out lightly since they play the Ducks tomorrow. Raanta played last night so we should see Keumper, wondering if Soupy will be in net?

You called it, this was a total trap game but the Kings played hard and never gave up even being down a few times.

I think the first goal Campbell gave up was weak, outside the dot/7 hole/defender put him on the outside but apart from that he played well enough to give the Kings a chance to win. They never led until the 3rd period and Carter...what can you say - unbelievable performances since he has returned.

An argument could be made that the Kings would be much closer to Vegas or Winnipeg in the standings (103 and 104 points) than the Blues or Avalanche (91 and 90 points) but the Kings were 1st in the WC as of January 2 at 24-11-5 (53/80 points, .663 W%) but since January 2 they have gone 20-17-2 (42/78 points.538 W%). That is a full -12.5% win percentage, it's not a small variance.

With Carter back they have gone 10-5-2 (.647 W%) which is no surprise, but my point is they pissed away the big lead they had in the standings on their own with or without Carter. His injury hampering the Kings doesn't hold water to me because they were tops in the league without him for 3 months.

That 6 game slide in January really hurt them because these were straight up losses - they didn't get any points at all in these games - and if the Kings don't make it in this is where they will need to see they lost the season, not the Edmonton lost the game wont the game lost the game or Chicago fiascos.

When this team is on, they can be flat out dominant but they are also so consistently inconsistent it's maddening. My concern is tonight's game - that was a huge win last night but tonight's game is even bigger and I am worried they will come out disinterested and not engaged.

Hope I'm wrong.

 

[Kings4OT]

Kings really needed the win last night vs Ducks. The loser point is ok, but really they needed a win in regulation IMO. I really think they need to win out to have a shot at this point and with the remaining games I am not sure they can do it. As we all saw they pissed away the season half way through and I am not excited to see what happens to this group offseason if they don't get in.